


The Unremarkable Mr. Holmes

by OctarineSparks



Category: Sherlock - Fandom
Genre: Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-22
Updated: 2014-01-22
Packaged: 2018-01-09 15:50:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1147816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OctarineSparks/pseuds/OctarineSparks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In ACD canon, Sherringford is the smarter of the Holmes boys. In this story, not so much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Unremarkable Mr. Holmes

There was a hierarchy of intellect in the Holmes household. Mycroft, the middle sibling, had always been the cleverest, and the most calculating. The youngest, Sherlock, was good at puzzles but showed no interest in the human condition, and therefore played a sad second fiddle, (quite literally). Which left Sherringford, who was the oldest, and well... Sherringford was an idiot.

Father defended the honour of the state while Mummy wrote books on quantum in between making shepherds pies. Mycroft was always the youngest in his class by several years and Sherlock's first full sentence had been a correction of someone else's grammar. Meanwhile, Sherringford languished in the comprehensive school system, scraping a handful of GCSEs at the normal age of sixteen and refusing to go academically any further.

He made his friends call him Ford and chased after girls at break time. The first time he managed to catch one was when he was fifteen, and he found himself weeping into his mother's arms a few months later, nursing a broken heart. She never had to comfort her other boys this way, and while she never played favourites it was nice to actually feel like a mother now and again. When he grew up, while Mycroft occupied a Minor Position and Sherlock tried to replace all of his blood with cocaine, he got a job in a factory, making screws and bolts and other such DIY paraphernalia, and in a surprising fit of longing to call himself a true Holmes he made manager in half a year. He worked hard, and never asked for handouts. He lived comfortably in a one bedroom flat twenty minutes from his parents house, and drove his shiny BMW to see them once a month.

Mycroft was always too busy to come, and Sherlock alternated between being too high and too bone idle.

He wondered if they had forgotten him, but his little brothers didn't forget anything. They were sponges for information, parasites that feasted on the day to day turn of the earth, and they had deemed Sherringford far too boring a long time ago.

When Christmas came he sent them cards, and comforted Mummy when they didn't show up for dinner. His heart was not hard enough to correct her when she set them places at the dinner table, so instead he swapped dark glances with his father as they sipped on pints of bitter.

Being a usual sort, Sherringford soon met a lady and they fell into convenient love. Babies were still a dot on the horizon but an engagement ring soon appeared on her finger and made Mummy cry. They both said what a lovely girl she was, and Sherringford agreed with that but not with the idea that he should invite his brothers to come. (With a plus one for Sherlock, who was living with an army doctor now, apparently, but it wasn't like that, you know how your brother is, Sherry). But Sherringford was loathe to offer them another chance to let him down, especially on the most important day of his life which was obviously beneath their notice.

Then something had happened, the way that things are wont to do. Words were said but more were shouted, and the lady packed her things and went, only leaving behind a diamond ring that glittered on the kitchen table.

He didn't weep into Mummy's arms this time. Instead he stared into the flames of their fire with a glass of scotch in his hand, listening to his father tell him what a good job it was that they hadn't actually sent out the invites yet, which to Mr. Holmes senior was as close as he could get to commiseration.

When Sherlock died, no one told him it was a trick.

He was in Dubai, on business but really in hiding, and when he heard about the fall all he could think was that the bastard had gotten him in the end.

It started some months prior. He had returned home to his empty flat, bone tired, to find a man sitting on his sofa.

"It's funny," he had begun, ignoring the look of outrage on Sherringford's face. "You're not a hard man to find, but it's a struggle to understand why anyone would bother."

He produced files and documents on Sherlock, and Sherringford told him honestly and bitterly that he had had no contact with either of his brothers for years, and that he himself would be no use as a weapon to use against the Holmes'. The man had grinned, and Sherringford saw his mother weeping and heard something that sounded like a call to arms. The man smirked.

"You're unremarkable, Sherringford. What could you possibly do?"

"You have no idea," he'd replied, common sense being beaten down by a protective instinct he never knew he had.

Three days later someone had taken a pot shot at him as he headed for his car. A warning, and nothing more, and while it frightened Sherringford it also vulcanised this idea that he had to look after Sherlock, for Mummy's sake.

He decided to send them both messages, telling them that they were in danger, especially Sherlock. 

A day after a note was posted through his door with two words. 'I know'. He didn't know which brother had sent it, but he knew it was the most words they had exchanged in years.

Not for the first time, when he was lying on his back in an alley, blood pouring from his side, did he wish he was even half as smart as his brothers. Maybe he would be able to spot the assassins in the crowd, hell, maybe he could even help. Now he was just bleeding out in the back of an ambulance, en route to life saving surgery and even more of Mummy's tears.

He rotted in that hospital bed, and Mummy fretted and father opened his mouth to say words that never came out. When Mummy left to get watery tea that tasted of plastic, Sherringford started to fill in the gaps.

"There's nothing I can do, is there?"

His father shook his head.

"Spare your mother, boy. Run."

So Sherringford said goodbye until who knows when and got on a plane that would touch down half the world away. Moriarty could touch him here if he wanted, but even he didn't really give a damn about the eldest Holmes. 

Then Sherlock had jumped, Mycroft hadn't called, so Sherringford had broke.

Failure is a great motivator, but as he chased thugs down darkened alleys he could hear his mother's voice making allusions to locking gates after horses had bolted. No matter, it didn't take a genius to grind your knuckles into someone's cheekbone, and with each blood stained encounter he felt a little better. Sherringford was a loose end, no matter how minor, and even if Moriarty was now just a shell with a hole where his evil used to be, Sherringford still had to be dealt with. That made it easy. That meant the bastards came to him. 

Six months after Sherlock's death, he received word from Mycroft. 'Stop. It won't bring him back.' Sherringford ignored it, as he was fast learning that that was the Holmsian way.

He wound up in prison, as he expected to sooner or later, on death row for nothing more serious that pest control. Mycroft came to see him.

"You've lost weight."

"And you've lost your mind. Really, Sherringford? What did you think you were going to achieve?"

"Something. Anything. You and Sherlock, mother and father, where do I fit in?"

"And you think Sherlock's death has made a space for you, is that it? No longer the ordinary black sheep of the family but a vigilante, sworn to avenge your brother's memory. I half expected you to be wearing a cape."

"Sherlock being dead doesn't make space, Mycroft. It just leaves a hole."

"That may be the smartest thing you've ever said, dear brother."

"Can you get me out?"

"You put me in a tough spot. Sherlock knew he had to die to take down James Moriarty, and yet you think you can easily dispatch his network with your fists."

"If not me, then who?"

"Who indeed? Your brother, genius that he was, could find no better way to stop that mad man. Can you?"

"So you're going to leave me here to die?"

"Isn't death just another adventure?" 

Sherringford glared at Mycroft and watched him walk away.

"Oh, and Sherringford? I hope you know that in your death, you and Sherlock will finally have something in common."

"That's sick."

"Oh, you misunderstand me, big brother. I asked him before his fall to consider one thing, and I now ask it of you too."

"What's that?"

"Lazarus."

\------------------------------------------

"Go to bed Sherlock!"

"I'm not tired," the younger Holmes protested, stifling a yawn.

"You're a bad liar. Come on." Sherringford hoisted his little brother from the arm chair and carried him upstairs.

"When is Mummy home?"

"Not until tomorrow," Sherringford replied, pulling Sherlock's covers up to his chin. The little boys eyes darted nervously. He'd never admit it, but Mummy not putting him to bed was upsetting his routine. Sherringford sighed. Alright then, what would Mum do?

"Do you want me to read you a story?" he asked. Sherlock shook his head, but withdrew his hand from his blankets to point at a book lying open on his bed stand. Sherringford picked it up and read the title. 

Lazarus Syndrome or autoresuscitation after failed cardiopulmonary resuscitation. 

"Really Sherlock?"

"It's a new thing," Sherlock said excitedly. "Sometimes, when people die, they do compressions on them and everything but it doesn't work so they stop. Then the heart starts working again, all by itself."

"Really? Wow, Sherlock, that's amazing but wouldn't you rather-"

"You have to be careful though. They might shut you in a morgue drawer thinking you're dead but you're not. You're not really dead Sherringford."

"Are you sure you want me to read this?"

Sherlock nodded fervently. 

"Ok," Sherringford said resignedly, clearing his throat. "Occurrences of the syndrome are extremely rare and..."

\------------------------------------------

There are so many people watching. He doesn't think he's getting out of this. Obviously he misunderstood Mycroft yet again. 

They make him stand in the middle of a dusty lot, hands tied behind his back. They ask him if he wants to say anything. He shakes his head.

Back home, they write his cause of death on a slip and file it away. A plaque is put up in Highgate Cemetery and no-one leaves any flowers. No one cries and asks him not to be dead. 

The last thing he sees as they slip the blindfold over his eyes is a tall figure, shaggy haired and bearded, but with blue eyes unmistakeable. Sherringford smiles, and finds peace in the fact that perhaps they do care after all.


End file.
